Saudi Arabia has been a fierce critic of the deal the Obama administration and other world powers made in 2015 to lift some crippling economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for limits on its nuclear program.

Under Prince Mohammed, Saudi Arabia has severed diplomatic ties with Iran and pressured countries in the Middle East and Africa to curtail their relationships with Tehran, accusing it of meddling in Arab affairs.

“We have to succeed so as to avoid military conflict,” said Prince Mohammed, who is Saudi Arabia’s day-to-day ruler. “If we don’t succeed in what we are trying to do, we will likely have war with Iran in 10-15 years.”

Iran has emerged as a more potent force in the Middle East following the nuclear deal and the dismantling of Islamic State, building its influence in Syria and Iraq, and allegedly supplying Yemeni rebels with weaponry used against Saudi Arabia in a three-year war.

Iran denies giving weapons to Yemeni rebels and says Saudi Arabia is the one playing a destabilizing role in the region.

The 32-year-old prince’s father, King Salman, appointed him as heir to the throne in June last year, consolidating his position as Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler.

President Donald Trump, who met Prince Mohammed in Washington last week, has threatened to scrap the nuclear deal and has nominated critics of the pact to top positions recently, including Mike Pompeo as secretary of state and John Bolton as national security adviser. European allies have pushed to keep the deal in place.

Saudi Arabia has applied economic pressure in its pursuit of political goals before, with mixed results. It temporarily blocked the flow of basic goods to Yemen, but that deepened a humanitarian crisis there.

Along with its three closest Arab allies, Saudi Arabia severed diplomatic ties and imposed an economic boycott on Qatar. But Qatar has rejected calls from the Saudi-led block to change the course of its foreign policy and take steps such as ending its support for the Muslim Brotherhood movement, an influential political Islam movement in the Middle East.

Members of the group, whose leader was ousted from power in Egypt in a 2013 military coup, say they oppose political violence and that they want to rule democratically. But countries like Saudi Arabia consider the group a terrorist organization.

“The Muslim Brotherhood is an incubator for terrorists,” Prince Mohammed said. “We have to get rid of extremism. Without extremism no one can become a terrorist.”

Under Prince Mohammed, who also serves as the kingdom’s defense minister, Saudi Arabia leads a military coalition that has been fighting a war in Yemen for three years, since Iran-aligned Houthi rebels ousted from the capital the internationally-recognized government of Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

Saudi Arabia’s war effort, which is supported by the U.S., has drawn widespread criticism because of the conflict’s devastating humanitarian consequences. Some 10,000 people have died so far, according to the United Nations, and the conflict has pushed Yemen to the brink of famine.

Prince Mohammed said failure to intervene in Yemen would have caused a bigger crisis.

“If we didn’t act in 2015 we would have had Yemen divided in half between the Houthis and al Qaeda,” Prince Mohammed said.

The prince’s comments came amid an escalation in the battle with Yemeni rebels. Over the weekend, rebels fired a barrage of missiles into Saudi Arabia, including three that were aimed at Riyadh, resulting in one death. It was the first time that missiles fired from Yemen caused casualties in the Saudi capital.

The prince dismissed the attacks as a sign of weakness. “They want to do whatever they can do before they collapse,” he said of the Houthis.

Prince Mohammed is in the U.S. for a charm offensive partly aimed at projecting a softer image of the ultraconservative kingdom—and at promoting the country as an investment destination.

Saudi Arabia, home of a rigid strain of Sunni Islam, applies some of the world’s most strict social restrictions.

The prince is now pushing to liberalize its society. Cinemas, long seen as immoral, will soon open and in June women will be allowed to drive. Prince Mohammed said more change will follow.

“We can’t drag people to live in Saudi Arabia in an environment that is not competitive,” said the prince, who is spearheading a plan to diminish the kingdom’s dependence on oil revenues. “The environment in Saudi Arabia is pushing even Saudis outside Saudi Arabia. That is one reason we want social reforms.”

good point. I'm sure Canada and Mexico would get dragged in on our side too... then again, with amount of Chinese (elite) in Canada and how much Mexico probably hates us right now, they might back stab us.

Buc2 wrote:If Pakistan is involved, India will for sure be on the opposite side.

good point. I'm sure Canada and Mexico would get dragged in on our side too... then again, with amount of Chinese (elite) in Canada and how much Mexico probably hates us right now, they might back stab us.

beardmcdoug wrote:good point. I'm sure Canada and Mexico would get dragged in on our side too... then again, with amount of Chinese (elite) in Canada and how much Mexico probably hates us right now, they might back stab us.

Mountaineer Buc wrote:At a glance, it seems the Saudis don't want Iranian oil on the market.

Possible but not probable. Iran has some of the least desirable oil (interestingly enough so does Venezuela) in the world unless price points go higher. They have heavy, sour crude which takes more refining to get gas from it at a lower yield per barrel. Even the light crude they have is sour and one of their larger reserves is some of the heaviest, sourest crude around. Best way to hurt them is to keep the price of oil down.

If Saudi was looking to force the price of oil up, thus making Iran's crude more profitable to refine, then it's possible. More probable is that it could be a Sunni (Saudi Arabia) vs. Shia (Iraq) branch of Islam issue.